Before leaving France, I found on the internet some towns that weren't too far out of our way. Our first stop was the town of Heusden.
The town was badly damaged during WWII, but was completely restored in 1968- including the restoration of the 3 windmills that originally adorned the town's walls.
Matthew and I completely fell in love with Heusden. It is utterly charming, from the harbor, to the windmills, to the cobblestone streets, to the walking paths that meander all around the perimeter of the town's walls (these walls are not walls in the traditional sense, but remind me more of a smaller version of the dike in Clemson). The weather could not have been more beautiful for our stroll through this beautiful town. The website where I read about Heusden called the town one of Holland's "best-kept secrets". I can't compare it to much else in Holland, but it was wonderful and I highly recommend it to anyone who might be taking a trip to The Netherlands!
Our next stop was the town of Kinderdijk. The 19 windmills (arranged in 2 lines on each side of the river) are the most well-known windmills in Holland. They are part of the UNESCO World Heritage List, and it is hard to find a book about Holland that doesn't include at least one photo of Kinderdijk.
We parked the car and walked through the main street in town and down to river. We hopped aboard a little boat that cruised down the river in between the two lines of windmills.
I was fascinated to see that people actually live in the windmills!
After grabbing a late lunch, we were back on the road and headed to Amsterdam. We had to drop off our rental car near the airport and then take the train into downtown Amsterdam. We chose a hotel that was walking distance from the train station.
It was about 9:00 by the time we set out to find a place to eat dinner (normal French time for dinner, very late for a Dutch dinner). The street we were on was packed with restaurants, bars, and college-aged students. After walking to the end of the street and back, we settled on an Irish pub promising good 'fish-n-chips', thinking as close as we were to the UK, they had to be good, right? And they were, although I was so hungry I think I could have eaten anything! Then it was back to the hotel (just as the streets were really getting lively with lots of red-eyed young people, hmmm, I wonder why...).
Unfortunately, we only had one day to see the sights in Amsterdam and we woke up Wednesday morning to a torrential downpour and freezing cold temperatures! Neither of us thought to bring a raincoat, but I do always carry an umbrella in my purse. Luckily the hotel desk had another one for Matthew to use. We darted down the street to a 'pancake' house and ordered breakfast.
The 'pancakes' are more the thickness/taste of a French crepe. Mine had apples, raisins, and honey. Matthew chose a ham and cheese pancake.
We waited in line outside for over an hour in the pouring rain. All we could do was look at each other and laugh from our huddled positions under the umbrellas. Finally, it was our turn to go in. We rented the headsets, which I highly recommend if you are like me and not crazy about museums. The information given on the headsets about background information of the painter or the time period made the paintings much more interesting to me.
After the Rijksmuseum, we took the tram over to the Anne Frank House. Luckily the skies had cleared (temporarily), so for our next hour wait in line, at least the sun was out.
Matthew and I were both really impressed with the Anne Frank House. Anne's father, Otto Frank, was the only one of the eight that hid in the house to survive the concentration camps. He played a big part in creating the museum. I thought it was really well done. Even though there was no furniture in any of the rooms (at the request of Otto Frank), the pictures and memorabilia on the walls were enough. They even had Anne's original diary and sheets and sheets of paper containing her short stories. There was also the beginning of the revised diary that Anne started because she planned on one day publishing her diary.
I personally got chills towards the end, in the room that showed which concentration camp each person went to, and how each died (with the exception of Otto). Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Margot died from typhus in March 1945. Only a few days later, Anne also died from typhus. Sadly, just a few short weeks later, on April 15, 1945, the camp was liberated by British Troops. My great-grandfather was the Director of the Pictorial Branch of the US Army during WWII. He was traveling with the British Troops that liberated the camp, and was the first American there. I remember visiting Popo (that's what the Colonel Charles Curtis Mitchell was called by his great-grandchildren) and seeing the horrific, framed black and white photographs in his office from Bergen Belsen. My grandmother donated his photographs and journals to the Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum in Atlanta, and they are part of the permanent collection there. The pictures of the mass graves were unbelievable to look at, but Popo said it had to be documented for “…those not present as eyewitnesses, because such inhumanity would be beyond belief.” My grandmother once asked him why in the world he would keep such pictures above his desk, and he said, "So I will never forget".
"One picture showed me standing on the edge of an open grave. It was shot on purpose because I suddenly thought of all of the people I knew with short memories… They would be the ones who would say, “Nonsense Mitchell, Belsen couldn’t have been that bad…” -Colonel Charles Curtis Mitchell
My grandfather is working on finding the cds with scanned copies of all of Popo's photographs. If he is able to find them, he will email them to me and I will post some.
After a great, but wet, day in Amsterdam we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Don't judge me. I know we were in a different country and should be sampling local cuisine, but we had just spent an entire weekend with Dutch people, eating Dutch food (and fyi, we told Mark and Silke that the Dutch must be the ones really responsible for settling The South because every meal we sat down to included something fried, several types of mayonnaise-based salads, and lots and lots of different types of pies! Paula Deen would have been proud). Matthew had never been to a Hard Rock, and I was craving good ol' American food. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven when I got my side salad with ranch dressing! Kind of sad, I know.
We flew back to Clermont the next day.
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